Scars to Your Beautiful
by tracelynn
Summary: Rhoda Hamilton is the patriotic female Victor out of District 1 in LadyCordeliaStuart's Patriot Games story, and previously her Into Thin Air SYOT. Here, my first ever Victor's past, present, and future is explored in a series of shorts/drabbles, each inspired by a lyric of the song "Scars to Your Beautiful" by Alessia Cara. Nonlinear.
1. She just wants to be beautiful

_She just wants to be beautiful._

* * *

She stands before the mirror and smiles, first a crooked smile, then a smirk, then a scowl, and then a wide grin. Her light brown eyes shine under the lights suspended above the granite vanity, and she hears the director clapping his hands incessantly and calling for the models to _come, come, come!_ She wrings her hands and all signs of confidence are sapped away from her young preteen face for a moment. She hasn't grown into her lips yet according to her mother, and her younger sister Iridia, prodding her striped black and white top this morning, told her it was too flashy. They love her, but they don't know when to stop with their constructive criticism. She's only eleven years old and she can't calm down. It is her first modeling gig after all. Her face looks watery and fake and she's so worried she might start crying at any moment. She swears her face is the ugliest thing she's ever seen. Her breath is shaky and uneven, and she crouches on the cold tile of the bathroom, trying not to throw up. Suddenly she feels a hand on her shoulder, and she looks up to see a Capitol boy about her age gripping her shoulder.

"Hey! My name's Adonis Gethsemane! My dad's the director here. He told me to go find the stragglers hiding in the bathroom!" he giggles. She staggers to her feet, and brushes the tears from her eyes. The moment she's standing and staring Adonis in his tinted purple eyes, he pauses. "Wow, you're really pretty."

"Thanks," she whispers, her voice catching in her voice. She clears her throat and straightens, sounding confident all of the sudden. "Let's go."

"Fiesty. Me likey!" Adonis jokes, and she follows him out, smiling. Her parents were right when they said Capitol people were kind and gracious.

* * *

Rhoda pulls back the hammer, and looks into those purple eyes. Adonis doesn't even react; he thinks she's joking, his signature, carefree smirk consuming his face with its jovial quality, brightening his features and making him look handsome. He was always so carefree on the set, making funny faces behind the camera while she posed, trying to distract her. She never liked him, not in a romantic way, and they didn't know each other too well. That's a lie. Adonis is probably one of the closest things she has for a friend. But will she really kill him? She died second place on a freezing mountain to a deviant Career via a _rock_ to the head. She's fought in a white padded room with thirteen others, she's killed prisoners, she's felt electricity surge through her veins until there's nothing but pain, she's relied on her new friend Steel Keshmin to keep her alive, and now here she is. All she has to do to go home is kill Adonis, and she goes home. All she has to do to get what they've taught her to want, what she honestly _does_ want, is fire the gun. She expects her hands to tremble like they did that one day in the bathroom on the set, but they don't. She expects her breath to catch in her throat, but it doesn't. She's not that girl any more.

She doesn't look away. She squeezes the trigger, and accepts their different fates. She hopes he accepts them, too.

* * *

 **A/N: I hope this was a good read. Rhoda Hamilton is my first ever Victor from an SYOT, and I'm excited to explore her through a lengthy series of drabbles based each on a lyric from Alessia Cara's "Scars to Your Beautiful". If I ever get any more Victors, I'll do a similar story about a song for them. Please review if you can, it's really helpful to hear your comments :)**

 **This will be updated about daily; I have two more drabbles already pre-made and so I'll probably stay ahead of it for a majority of the time before the story is completed. This won't really effect my other updating (hopefully).**

 **Until Next Time,**

 **Tracee**


	2. She goes unnoticed, she knows no limits

_She goes unnoticed, she knows no limits_

* * *

She doesn't know why she does it, but she _does_ do it. She stays after at the shoot after everyone's already packed up and trooped home to get extra tips from the photographers and the other workers there. She spends hours picking the perfect spots and ads and banners to do when she could just choose a handful randomly like the others do. She gets to the Academy on her full-training days at dawn and leaves at dusk, sweat soaked and aching, her hands covered in blisters and her face feeling like it's covered in a layer of gritty sand. No one says anything about the extra effort. They watch her walk down the hallways, and they part like the sea did for Moses for her, but she doesn't really take that into account. She thinks it's just a common courtesy; she does it for most other people when they're not parting for her. She doesn't know why the trainers are either nicer or harder on her, showing their appreciation in their own ways. She doesn't know why people cast their eyes to their feet as she walks past like she's some goddess; in her eyes, she _is_ a goddess. She's Rhoda Hamilton, the guaranteed next Victor from One, trademarked and all that. She doesn't see the posters, she rarely pays attention to the commercials, and she subconsciously picks the prettiest outfits and layers on her makeup each day. She doesn't know when to stop, and she doesn't know that she _should_ be stopping; she's just gone so far. She's pushed past everything and doesn't know anything else.

* * *

She creeps down the street in One. Everything feels charged with electricity, and she knows it's because of her. After she died, there were riots and protests and petitions and attempted suicides and death threats to Shane Donegal. She can't admit that she likes the newest Victor from Four, but she can't admit that she likes anyone that has anything to do with the Capitol at this point. She gets him in a way, just like she gets her changed District. They're fed up with everything too, the lies and the deceit and the murder, but they're One, they're Four. They can't do anything but smile and use excuses like Rhoda Hamilton's death to show their distaste. She's almost...happy...that she died that first time. Now she knows. Now she knows, at home in One, that she's not alone.

* * *

 **A/N: I'm posting two today, because I have a surplus already pre-made. Enjoy! :D**


	3. She craves attention, she praises

_She craves attention, she praises an image_

* * *

She doesn't know why she does it, but she grabs every poster and flyer of herself that she can without taking so many that there's none left in the streets, and she builds a little shrine of memorabilia in the basement of her family's large three floor home. The outside walls are painted a buttercream yellow, the inside walls soft blues or pale purples, but the bare, gritty cellar is plastered with thousands of Rhodas, staring down at a spot in the middle of the area where a little stained pillow lies. Rhoda kneels there sometimes and looks at the smiling faces of herself, beaming or scowling or smirking down at her, their brown eyes sparkling, their blonde hair always just past chin length. It's her center; she is her own center, on glossy photo paper and flimsy advertising flyers. Sometimes she drags the video player down to the basement and watches as the commercials, dozens of them, all downloaded on the device, flash across the screen. She looks so much more beautiful in all those images and videos than she does whenever she goes to the basement. It's on the hard days at the Academy where they break her and blood pools around her and she runs home, lost. It's on the hard days at the photoshoot where they suffocate her in layers of makeup and clothing until she's not herself any more, and it's on those days she doesn't really know who the true Rhoda Hamilton is. It's on the hard days when her parents sometimes bicker and Iridia starts crying because she thinks they're going to get divorced and Rhoda just can't listen to their chattering. It's on the normal days when she just needs to relax and calm down. She doesn't realize how self centered it is, but is one self centered if they don't realize that they're being that way?

* * *

Her parents and Iridia have moved into the Victor's Village of One with her, not just because they want the honor of living there, but because their house is ransacked. After she died with her head split in two by the rock at the hands of Shane, the whole of One roiled and revolted and surged out into the streets, tearing down posters of her, banners of her, taping commercials and TV spots that featured her. Anything and everything Rhoda Hamilton became priceless.

They tore into her house. They pushed past her shocked mother and her yelling father and an indignant Iridia and they started to take things. They loved her, sure, but to break into her own home? To take all that she holds dear? Her old clothes, her old jewelry, her old stuffed animals?

They found the shrine.

Rhoda walks down the creaky basement steps, and pulls on the dangling, rusted chain. The light bulb flickers to life, and her breath catches in her throat.

There's nothing left.

She staggers the rest of the way down the stairs and her fingers claw against the closest wall. There's just staples and tacks and nails with little ribbons of torn paper sticking out from them. There's no faces staring sternly or approvingly down at her, just tattered scraps spread out throughout the basement, enough so that maybe she could rebuild on lopsided picture out of fragments from hundreds of images. But it's gone. It's all gone.

She falls to her knees on the old, stained pillow, and lets herself cry for the first time since...forever.


	4. She prays to be sculpted by the sculptor

**A/N: Personal favorite. Enjoy!**

* * *

 _She prays to be sculpted by the sculptor_

* * *

The Capitol men and women march into the Academy with their funny hair and frivolous clothing and tittering accents and inspect Rhoda and the other eleven year old girls. She isn't just a little innocent girl any more; they've started watching the Games in depth, getting lectures about the blood and the gore and the screams from Estrella and Peridot. The more squeamish girls are already gone, and the herd was thinned ever earlier, back on the days they all applied to enter at ages five to ten. Now these Capitols are inspecting them, and they ask Rhoda and another girl, Glass Harcourt, to come with them. They give them big packets about modeling and when the show up at the first photoshoot, this one not in the Capitol like the others, but in downtown One, just to get them off and running. Glass seems pretty uninterested and asks when they can go back to learning about the different types of swords. Rhoda's eyes are full of light, however, as she flips through the glossy pages of the Capitol brochure, her eyes feasting on the beautiful women and handsome men posing and traveling around the Districts. On the bottom of the brochure, it reads _Only Panem's Best!_ Rhoda knows it's a thing her parents will want her to try, and she wants to try it too.

* * *

Rhoda holds the pamphlet close to her chest as she tries to sleep, staring at the ceiling. She squeezes her eyes shut and wishes as hard as she possibly can, wishing upon every glittering star in One's relatively clear night sky. She wishes upon all the gems in her District, upon every glittering knife and sword and arrow in the Academy, upon every different thing she can see in her bedroom from lying down on her plush mattress.

She wants this more than she's ever wanted anything. Well, more than everything except being a Victor and making her parents proud.

* * *

The nights are dark and the days even darker. She's back in the Capitol for the Forty Fifth Annual Hunger Games. Of course she had to do some promos, of course she has to Mentor tributes again, of course she has to critique and prep every tribute in the Games for their interviews and chariot rides. Of course she's crumbling inside like her resolve was while she held onto the burning electric board during her secret Resurrection Games. On the outside, however, she grins with her stunning bright white teeth and flashy brown eyes that glint with ferocity and her golden locks that somehow exemplify patriotism. It feels like she's being pulled apart, like she's Inside Rhoda and Outside Rhoda, like they're not the same person and she's two different entities. She's not crazy. She doesn't hear voices in her head. She just feels like she's here and she's there and everything she does isn't what she thinks she should do when she's alone and trying not to cry into her pillow.

It's the third day of the Games and Rhoda is taking some time off to go to a small cafe outside the Control Center for lunch with Pray, Peridot, Careen, and Ava, her core group of Career girlfriends. Rhoda stands up to go to the bar and get another scotch on the rocks. She meets eyes with the new bartender who's just started his shift, his bright blonde locks and startlingly bright icy blue eyes standing out against the darkened interior of the bar. He can't really see what she looks like. His voice is drab as he asks her for what she'd like to drink.

"Scotch," she mutters. "I'm...Raida."

"I'm Kincaid," he murmurs, handing her her drink. "Nice to meet you, Ms. Raida. I bet you look pretty. Here's my number, and call me if you want." He scribbles his phone number on a napkin, folds it up, and hands it to her along with her scotch. Rhoda grins and thanks him before walking back to the table.

"Why are you all so bright and sunny, Hamilton?" Pray barks, sipping at her beer. "You've been looking like Donegal hit you over the head again all day."

Rhoda immediately is alight with a retort, her eyes burning with sudden fervor at the mention of her first dishonorable death. "Why are you drinking, Jager?! You know Rudolph could've gotten you pregnant again," Rhoda purrs, and everyone laughs as Pray sighs and rolls her eyes, discreetly setting down her beer.

"Touche, Hamilton. Touche."

* * *

 **A/N: Hope that was good, I loved writing Pray! XD**

 **I hope you guys are enjoying this, and drop a review if you can. :)**

 **Until Next Time,**

 **Tracee**


	5. Oh, she don't see the light that's

_Oh, she don't see the light that's shining_

* * *

Rhoda looks at the mountain towering to her right, blotting out the sky, blotting out the sun, blotting out the clouds, blotting out the stars, blotting out everything. The sky is clear, robin egg blue in color, and the air is thin and cold in her lungs. The holographic countdown shimmers over the golden Cornucopia, which sticks out like a sore thumb on the rocky plateau at the base of the mountain where it sits. As the countdown drops number by number, it speeds up, and suddenly the sun spikes through the sky, cleaving past the far off, nearly invisible crest of the towering behemoth of icy and rock. The millions of tiny ice crystals shine under the light and the Horn gleams blindingly. The heat and the cold mix together to create an uncomfortable combination of the elements. She can barely see the countdown, bathed in the sharp rays of the closer-than-normal sun. But she squints, ignoring the light, and watches as the countdown finishes off and the music tinkles through the air, signaling the beginning of the Games. She's off her platform the moment the first chime sounds, to the Cornucopia by the time the tune is done. She grabs the spear, the sunlight glittering across its silvery length. She turns to see the girl from Nine lunging for the spear, and Rhoda twirls and jabs it roughly into the girl's head. She crumples at Rhoda's feet, and Rhoda doesn't even look down. 1 down, 22 to go.

* * *

As she hauls herself over the edge, she sees the headstrong Six girl, Toyota or Corvette or something like that, stepping back a little. She pulls herself fully onto the ledge and watches as the girl looks around wildly, the sun shining around her head like a halo, but Rhoda ignores it. Her first kill past the Bloodbath. She takes a step forward, and then the Six girl bolts, although there's nowhere to bolt. Rhoda steps to the side fluidly, and watches as the girl launches herself off of the ledge, hundreds of feet up in the air, and pinwheels as she falls, screaming until Rhoda can't hear her anymore, she's so far away. Then there's a loud symphony of cracks and snaps, and the Six girl is dead. She guesses dead is dead. 8 down, 15 to go.

* * *

Jason and Tuesday had split for Onyx and herself, and now they were dead. She didn't know how they had died, but it didn't make her feel any more confident. Onyx has been acting very strangely, staring off into space and never holding his weapon in his hands. When she spots the two Outliers creeping along a little bit of a way down the mountain and prepares to throw the spear, she isn't surprised, really, when he shoulders her out of the way. She knew his resolve had broken and he'd lost it. She swings up her collapsable spear and watches as it scopes out, and she jabs it upwards, thrusting it into his stomach. He gurgles and falls off of the spear, but he grins as the sun glitters across the blood dripping out of his wound. She doesn't get it. His cannon fires, and then she turns and pulls the spear out of Onyx's corpse before tossing it down the mountain, watching as it slices perfectly into one of the screaming figures, their forms barely able to be made out as the sun shimmers over them. But Rhoda can see through anything when she throws her spears. The other makes it away, but Rhoda doesn't care at all. 15 down, 8 to go.

* * *

The two tributes from Four. The overeager little patriot that Rhoda has a shred of respect for, and the strange, cuckoo boy from Four who volunteered for this but decided that killing was "oh so terrible!" She hates those types of Careers, those that pretend to be patriots and killers and then just quit and give up and leave the pack because they gain "morals", more than she hates the annoying outer District volunteers who think they're all that like her first kill, Tillia from Nine. But it isn't time to kill Shane yet. They're destined to have that final epic battle that will be hard fought but won by Rhoda. Hamilton. Rainey, however, is expendable. No one wants to see Panem's Sweetheart spear a little girl who volunteered to young in the finale with ease. Rhoda throws the spear and doesn't know that the sun, a fuzzy outline around her, makes her look like some demented, evil goddess as she lopes away across the mountainside. 20 down, 3 to go.

* * *

The sword gleams in the sun, ice coating its sharp blade. Rhoda ignores how pretty it looks, slamming the blade against her boots and letting the ice chunks fall off so her sword will be more functional and will cut through the flesh of the others so much easier. She then spots the two boys perched on the nearby ledge, inspecting the area opposite her. Stupid boys, cornering themselves. She creeps up behind them, and they whirl in fear, making small talk as they try to figure out a way to survive. Suddenly Rhoda lurches forward, the Eleven boy steps backward into his ally, the Six boy, and the Six boy falls off of the ledge. The Eleven boy tries to catch him, but he can't, and before he even stands up her sword is through his back and poking out of his stomach. Blood is splattered across the pristine snow, and when Rhoda draws her sword out of Kuma's back, more of it sprays into the air. Rhoda doesn't care. She doesn't care about anything any more, except getting that crown. All she has to do is kill accursed Shane Donegal, the man she's come to despise just because of his demeanor and his choices and his betrayal. 22 down, 1 to go.

* * *

She sees everything as the rock arcs down towards her head. She sees the blood and the tears, hears the screams and the crunching ice. She sees the sun, so bright and so blazing and so blinding that it's all she sees. She squeaks out, "Do Panem proud," before she slips away, encompassed by the sun.

She's down, 0 to go for Shane Donegal, that damn bastard.

* * *

 **A/N: That was much longer than I anticipated XD I hope it was good!**

 **Until Next Time,**

 **Tracee**


	6. Deeper than the eyes can find it

_Deeper than the eyes can find it_

* * *

It only takes one simple comment from a too-cocky sixth year cadet to knock the wind out of Rhoda Hamilton three weeks before the Reaping of the Forty Second Annual Hunger Games.

The little cadet, with her bubblegum pink dyed pixie cut hair, silvery nose ring, and posse of younger girls, saunters past as Rhoda stalks down the hall, going from the swords room to the cafeteria. As she makes her way down the barren corridor, the girl looks up and grins, her piercing glittering in the light, her not-so-pretty face concealed by layers of carefully applied makeup. The girl doesn't notice that her real face is showing, that some of the makeup has been scrubbed away by sweat from training. She smiles crudely, swiping a few stray pink locks out of her eyes, and speaks.

"Looks like the pretty peacock is all alone, eh?" she hisses, and her following laughs automatically, as if someone pressed a button to turn them on. Rhoda hasn't listened to the petty cliques of girls since the moment she rose to the top of her class in her seventh year, when she was twelve and more than halfway through her commitment to the Academy and had just started modeling. Until then her plan was the same as Iridia's; train for the honor and the experience, and then enter into the Peacekeeping force when she turned eighteen and graduated. But at the end-of-semester Academy wide assembly, when they called out that Rhoda Hamilton was the top female cadet in the seventh year class, and thousands of sets of eyes focused on her as she accepted the award from _Estrella. Vazquez,_ she felt it. The need. The want. The tug. The obsession. She committed herself then to try and make the Games. She has trophies from every year since then stacked in an impeccable row on a shelf in her room.

But the cadet's words crash into her for some reason. She gets her food and then plops the tray down on the metallic table. No one else sits with her, even though she's the top cadet in her class just like the pink pixie cut girl. She has no friends. What is her life? Training relentlessly and posing for cameras as the flash blinds her, and ignoring family and friends and romance? Of course that's what it is. On the surface, she's the calm, gorgeous girl who's ruled the female rankings of her class for the past half decade. She's the perfect barbie doll with a beautiful complexion and the ability to gut a human being from two hundred feet away with a spear. She's the impetus behind the motivation of dozens of girls in One who've joined the Academy, and she retains the awe inspiring skill with a sword that's earned her the top spot in her class. She's the never ceasing patriot, who's never said a bad word about the Capitol. She's the unrelenting good girl, who's never dated a person, not to mention had sex with one. Of course, then, there should be something more below the surface. A fleshed out personality that she reveals around her friends and her family.

She has no friends, and her family is so much more distant than she remembers them being. She can't remember the last time she gossiped with someone her age, even talked for more than a minute with someone her age actually. She can't remember the last time she told Iridia that she loves her, or that she felt the solid embrace of her father. She can't remember the last time she's ever thought about anyone romantically. She can't remember the last time she saw anything but respect and pride and courage, not affection, on her mother's face when she talks to her.

If Rhoda doesn't know herself, does anyone?

* * *

 **A/N: Agh so late! With my illness, schoolwork, and more, I've been behind on everything. I hope this was a good one! :D Please review, it's very helpful :)**

 **Until Next Time,**

 **Tracee**


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